


Mistakes Were Made

by tortuosity



Series: Every Storm a Serenade [2]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, reverse POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 10:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18658921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortuosity/pseuds/tortuosity
Summary: After returning from the Deep Roads expedition, the last thing Hawke wants is to be the responsible one.A companion piece to Songs of the Pirate Queen's Chapter 10 (Act 1, Part 5: "Radioactive"), from Hawke's POV.





	Mistakes Were Made

**Author's Note:**

> CW for alcohol abuse
> 
> Original chapter here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17621633/chapters/42405263

The first thing Hawke buys with her expedition money is a bottle of whiskey. It’s high quality, not the sort of thing she usually drinks. Not that she usually drinks, in general, but her typical coping strategy of “pack the trauma up into a neat little package and store it in the cupboard to deal with later or—more likely—never” is not working ever since she watched Bethany get carried away by the Wardens.

The moment she’s out of sight, she tears at the wax sealing the top of the bottle, coating her fingers red, and sucks down a mouthful. It’s not the treatment such a fine whiskey deserves, but it’s what she deserves, a harsh burn straight down into her gut. It’s pathetic, she thinks, to behave this way, to mourn this way. She should be responsible. She should go home to her uncle’s dingy hovel and break the horrible news to Mother, hold her when she cries, weather her anger, be strong and calm and mature. But she’s tired of being the responsible one. She’s tired of holding everything together. Tired of mothering her own mother.

What if she wanted to cry? Who would hold her? Who would allow her to unload her burdens for one fucking second? Who would let her be selfish? Bethany would. Father would. Maybe even Carver, if he was feeling generous. But they were all dead, or as good as dead.

She wants to self-destruct. She wants to make mistakes. If she’s supposed to be the glue, she wants to dissolve, let everyone clinging to her for guidance fall where they may, consequences be damned. Maybe that’s the reason her legs are taking her to the Hanged Man.

Isabela. The exact kind of hedonistic, self-centered woman Hawke wants to emulate right now. There’s tension between them, thick enough to cut. As evasive as she tended to be about everything else, Isabela had been extraordinarily up front about her sexual desire. Hawke is aware how much she’s fed into it, how much she’s stoked the fire between them, but always held back, kept things from boiling over. It’s a dangerous game she’s playing, and Hawke knows the second she gives in, her indifferent facade, her determination to keep things casual, the way Isabela would want it, will start to crumble. For Hawke, for all her devil-may-care attitude, is a woman who falls far too quickly in love, and she knows it. And she also knows Isabela is a woman who does _not_ fall in love, end of story.

But she’s not thinking about that right now. Right now, all she’s thinking about is how to purge her mind of images of Bethany, veins black and pulsing and _wrong_ under pale, damp skin. The drink isn’t helping, merely blurring everything together: white eyes flashing in the dark, spider fangs dripping venom, nothing but rock, down, down, down. Well, if the whiskey won’t cut it, maybe sun-kissed skin and experienced hands and a wicked smirk will do the trick. At least then they can both get what they want.

She sets what’s left of the bottle on a table as she walks in, a gift for some lucky drunkard. Happy Wintersend. Or Satinalia. She doesn’t know what month it is. Placing a hand on the wall to steady herself, she climbs the stairs, a task made much harder than it has to be with deteriorating depth perception. Isabela’s room is the second door around the corner, to the right. Hawke has never been there, despite numerous invitations, but she’s had its location memorized since their first meeting, the first coy proposition: “I have a room at the Hanged Man, if you’d like company later.” She’s months late; hopefully the offer hasn’t expired. 

Hawke is nearly too drunk to see the relief flooding Isabela’s face, washing away the fear. At that moment, she is the most beautiful thing Hawke has ever seen. Somehow that makes everything more unbearable. But no. _Don’t think, don’t think, let her take you_. It’s become so familiar, almost comfortable, the smell of the ocean, the taste of sin. Hawke realizes she probably smells like dust and tastes like a distillery. It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter, because Isabela is moaning into her mouth, grinding against her thigh, taking everything Hawke has to give like she’s been waiting a lifetime for it. And, for a few blissful heartbeats, Hawke’s mind is hijacked.

And then she is stopped. Her thoughts run slow, hampered by pain and alcohol and the overarching need to forget, but eventually her brain processes that Isabela is stopping her hands from their descent and asking her to wait. So she has made a mistake after all, just not the sort of mistake she was hoping for.

“Not like this,” Isabela says, and she sounds so sad that it’s almost infuriating. How can it not be what she wants? After all the teasing and insinuations, here Hawke is, practically throwing herself at her, and this is what she gets? All she can hear are the shrieks of genlocks, bodies and bodies piling up around her. So much blood, blackened ichor and eviscerated guts squelching under her boots.

And Isabela’s hand is encircling hers, and she’s being pulled to bed, and maybe that was what she wanted, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wasn’t supposed to bare her soul, just her body. She doesn’t want to confront any of it, not yet, not ever, not while it’s still so raw, but it’s all coming out, every horrid step from the surface down. The stone closes in around her, so cold, trapped, trapped, trapped. At some point, she realizes she’s crying and that Isabela has hauled her crumpled body into her lap. She has to focus on the feeling of Isabela's breathing against her back, the warmth of her leg against her cheek, the weight of her arm draped over her waist, until the walls begin to subside.

Hawke doesn’t understand why Isabela is allowing this, but she is too exhausted and can’t take any more senseless rumination. When Isabela says Bethany will be okay, Hawke wants to believe, wants to cling onto whatever shreds of hope are left to her. She’s never been a woman given to regret, yet she is nothing but regrets now. She remembers the way Mother looked at her when she told Bethany to get her supplies ready. Like Hawke had taken the blade from her back and stabbed Bethany herself.

So maybe she will let herself be selfish. Maybe she will stay here, push her problems to tomorrow, enjoy being in another’s arms, at least until Isabela makes her leave. Hawke hopes she won’t, because here in this room the Deep Roads, the darkspawn, and the Wardens can all rot in the Void, left underground where they belong.

The booze makes her head swim, brings simmering heat to her skin’s surface, deadens her limbs. She closes her eyes, watches the world swirl behind her eyelids. Not going to fall, not yet. Those fluttery feelings are just whiskey whispers.

She slips into unconsciousness and dreams of a black-sailed ship gliding across an underground lake, illuminated by red lyrium stalactites winding down from the cavern ceiling. When she wakes, mush-brained, caught in a half-drunk, half-hungover state, it is the middle of the night. And, right on schedule, comes the eldest child shame. She shouldn’t be here, away from what family she has left, imposing on a woman who freely admits to being emotionally stunted. Why did she think it was a good idea to burden Isabela with a drunken breakdown? Stupid, stupid.

Slithering free from a one-armed embrace she’d really, _really_ rather not leave, she gently, silently gets to her feet. In the moonlight, head tilted down toward her chest, jaw slightly slack, Isabela doesn’t look like a fearsome raider, the Queen of the Eastern Seas. She looks like a regular, mortal woman trying to survive, like anyone else in this city. Hawke knows Isabela carries something heavy and awful with her, even if she is loathe to discuss it. They all have it, everyone that Hawke calls friend—a tenseness around the eyes, a defensiveness in their posture. Hawke finds her hopelessly intriguing, a puzzle to solve. It’s risky, she knows, navigating uncharted waters like this, but it couldn’t be helped. She is enraptured.

Should she leave a note? Some kind of apology? No, best not. That would make things complicated, inject more feelings into an already emotionally-fraught situation. She would just leave; Isabela would understand. Taking a deep breath, she closes the door behind her, leaving everything in her wake like a snake shedding its skin. With a bitter smile, she slides the mask back on.


End file.
